"With My Dog in the Rain" handles the often melodramatic theme of mortality with an impressive delicacy, leading the narrator through a declining landscape, past the spoors of lives that have gone before, toward the central metaphor of the poem and his acceptance of forces to which he is subordinate. If it weren't for the final word in this work, it's likely this would be another poem entirely. Were there previous versions of this poem that you had to tone down with a subtler delivery in mind, or did restraint accompany inspiration in this case?

Your questions are eloquently posed! In my first draft, which is very close to the final one, I wrote "sobers me" instead of "sobers". I then realized that "sobers" was more universal and economic for an ending. Of mortality I was entirely unaware, but it is written into any close observation of nature.

How do you generally approach crafting a poem once inspiration has arrived? How about revision?

Big question. I have several methods depending on the poem. In an essay in Blue Fifth Review I divided poems into deductive and inductive, open and closed. By those criteria this is an inductive closed poem; that is to say, it was inspired by an immediate experience (inductive) and leads to a conclusion (closed). As I hiked (I often compose poems or songs while hiking with my dog) I made mental notes in words about what I was seeing and later that same evening put them down on paper. The first draft was close to what I wanted. After an editor didn't like a word, I took another look at the poem and smoothed it out a bit, substituting "white" for "salt" because of his comment. I liked "salt" because it's white, can be scattered, and speaks of the sea—rather than merely using "white" again, as I have in so many poems about the ocean. But I'm not married to my work and don't think it's so precious that a word here or there will ruin it. The chief danger of revision is over-revising until you squeeze all the juice out of a poem. This poem stood up quickly; others have taken seven years or more.

This poem is also very successful in establishing a sense of place. I'm guessing Northern California or Oregon coast. Could you share a little bit about the part of the world responsible for this poem?

I live on the beautiful Mendocino coast. Your guess is right on. For those who know it no explanation is needed.

From your bio, I gather that you are no stranger to the experience of standing before forces as unfathomable and persistent as the ocean in this poem. How has poetry helped you come to terms with these forces and navigate in spite of them?

Poems are like dolmens I set up to remember my journey, affirmations of a sort even in my darkest periods. Every poem is a triumph, an attempt to anchor oneself to experiences through words--some outer postcards, some inner, but all better than being a mere victim in an imponderable world; the act raises us at the very least to observers and interpreters.

You also mention "cycles" in your bio. Though they may differ from one artist to the next, we all have to contend with them. Many artists (myself very much included) have had to go through difficult periods of self-diagnosis in order to understand, appreciate, and, eventually, utilize their artistic cycles. Do you have any advice for those struggling with this leg of the journey?

See a doctor, see if it's serious enough to be biological and need treatment. If treatment isn't needed, enjoy it and pace yourself. Strike when the iron's hot. Sylvia Plath did much of her best work in just the month before she died. Rilke, after ten years of producing nearly nothing, finished the Duino Elegies and Sonnets to Orpheus in under two months. Handel wrote The Messiah in three weeks. Of these three I know that two were bipolar like me, which may make such production exceptional. But overall, realize that during fallow periods something is still happening, brooding, seeking eventual realization. You cannot force it, but when you're really rolling, when it comes easy, you can at least force yourself to write it down for fear of losing it.

You have a new book of poetry out from Diminuendo Press entitled, Unexpected Light: Selected Poems and Love Poems 1998-2008. Could you talk about this collection and the labor that went into it?

My, my, errr...it represents over ten years of my life, culled from probably over 500 publications (though a very few of the poems haven't been published). I really can't make heads or tails of it, just that my wife and editor, Kathleen, and I, decided these were the best of the lot, though I chose all the love poems. All I can say is that the book is my life, inner and outer, but written in such a way (so I hope) that others can enter into it equally. This aspiration has something to do with what Eliot said about being "beyond personality". In the end good art must rule the personality, the personality must sacrifice some of its peculiarities for the universal, just as in the poem under discussion I changed "sobers me" to "sobers". One corollary of this principle is that some of my favorite poems did not make it in.

Aside from individual poems, are you currently at work on another project?

I have an essay on Rilke and Eliot coming up for one journal, an essay on Roethke for another. I've been composing songs like mad--you can download some from my website. But my publisher says my main project right now is to promote the book. ;-)

In your bio, you talk about "logopoetry". Could you elaborate on this theory of yours?

The four essays that comprise my ars poetica are still up at The Melic Review and available at my website. Probably best just to lift a few quotes:

From Logopoetry I:

"The hallmark of Existential [my term for Post-Modern] poetry is a preoccupation with self, a feeling of isolation, and an attempt to lift oneself from this quagmire through art, or at least give vent to the plight. Largely divorced from any religious or cultural tradition, it is a poetry where the burden of meaning presses down on the author with a weight no previous generation of poets knew. This pressure, I think, is one reason so many schools and techniques have flourished."

From Logopoetry II:

"For poetry it follows that given sufficient meaning, a reader can endure nearly anything. Still, the experience must be communicable. It should not be like an untitled abstract painting that people project their meanings upon. There should be a commonality of sense readers share after navigating a poem, else it is beyond discussion and thus beyond words. And if it is beyond words, it has exceeded the medium that gave it birth, and at least in an heuristic sense, is not poetry, but a Rorschach for the elite."

"Intelligibility, the acknowledged cooperation of the brain's hemispheres, man's need for meaning, and the idea that language is first a vehicle for communication — these constitute the introductory principles of logopoetry."

From Logopoetry III:

"Some of the very best poetry has to be received irrationally, holistically, musically,without room for logical objections, in a "suspension of disbelief”—one lesson of the "deep image" school. It is not my intent to reduce this mystery in any way, only to identify it with an ancient concept [Logos], or the operational acknowledgment thereof, while pointing out the rational limits an audience imposes. The heart of art is non-verbal; poets truly are blind men describing an elephant; words come as an afterthought, an afterbirth. They attempt to describe a whole that can only be approximated by language. It is the role of logos, namely reason (associated with the left hemisphere), to attempt a intelligible translation of vision into words."

"Meaning is not the opposite of feeling, apathy is. And feeling is not the opposite of meaning, but nonsense. Form is not the opposite of substance. The opposite of form is formlessness or chaos. And the opposite of substance is lack of substance or superficiality and confusion. All four qualities can be both competitive and complimentary, depending on the poem. Each of the four poles [in the accompanying mandala] embodies a positive value and logos symbolizes the dynamic mean between these values, the balance that should best succeed at realizing the Logos. The danger inherent in this schema is therefore not opposition but imbalance."

From Logopoetry IV:

"All art must be approached on its own terms. It is only when those terms demand too much of an audience that I might be remembered for advocating a level of intelligibility that engages the audience and allows intelligent discourse. To repeat what I said at the outset, if a poem cannot be discussed in words, it has exceeded its medium. Whoever thinks to go "beyond language" is still slave to its conventional meanings for effects. Why not wear the yoke of our medium's limitations gracefully?"

The tug-of-war between clarity and abstraction is certainly not a new conflict in poetry. Furthermore, if we examine history, we'll find that emphasis has also shifted back and forth between form and substance. If the preference of one over the other is a reflection of the dominant ideals and psychology of a given era, what is it about our present culture that you feel could be nudging poets toward obscurity?

Definitely the preference for form over substance, forgetting what Harold Bloom calls "the common reader," and the Balkanization of beliefs, the elevation of tolerance to the chief virtue (as opposed to love, justice or truth). When people don't believe in truth, the culture reflects the same relativity, and that's not enough for a man to live by. I think poetry should have a foundation of meaning relevant to humans for all time, and that it should speak to the best in us. To write such poetry nowadays you must go against the grain. Poetry is the best way to say something, but what if you have nothing of consequence to say? You have to fill the page with something.

You've cited some solid influences in your bio, but who, aside from Mark Strand, do you find inspiring when it comes to contemporary poets? Why?

"Inspiring" may be too strong a word, but I like Jack Gilbert and the late William Stafford for reasons enumerated above. They have something to say and they say it well.

You've been pretty involved with the online poetry scene, both in terms of publication and workshops. In your opinion, how has the Internet positively affected the art form and its practitioners? Has there been a downside?

I think it's been good for the art overall. I feared democratization would produce a certain sameness, but that has not happened, although there is a prevailing style that has dominated most journals for the last twenty years, what I refer to as "PEMLODS (Personal Emotive Monologues with Lots of concrete Details)" and others refer to as the "Iowa Workshop Poem." This dominance may actually be fading now.

How do you think the Internet could be better utilized to serve the arts?

First, pay the authors! (I'm kidding.) I think art could not be served better than by the opportunities now present on the internet. Anyone can grab a platform and a megaphone and start shouting. Others (as I have) can run the gauntlet of editors in the hopes of proving their worth. The only thing bad about publication in net journals is that the best print journals look down on them, and it's hard to impress the editor of say, Ploughshares, with a net credit. Old habits die hard.

I will say that in my 11+ years of publishing on the net that the quality of literary journals overall has improved, and that it's now more difficult to be published in them. Some even pay. Also I've been doing it long enough to see former top names fade into obscurity while others have hung around. Still, in today's publishing world, nothing provides a greater opportunity than the net, but the credibility is still lacking.